In the 16th century, Turkish women could divorce their husbands if the man failed to keep his family’s pot filled with coffee.
GRAVELLING
GRAVEL
perplex, vex, stick, get, puzzle, mystify, baffle, beat, pose, bewilder, flummox, stupefy, nonplus, gravel, amaze, dumbfound
(verb) be a mystery or bewildering to; “This beats me!”; “Got me--I don’t know the answer!”; “a vexing problem”; “This question really stuck me”
gravel
(verb) cover with gravel; “We gravelled the driveway”
annoy, rag, get to, bother, get at, irritate, rile, nark, nettle, gravel, vex, chafe, devil
(verb) cause annoyance in; disturb, especially by minor irritations; “Mosquitoes buzzing in my ear really bothers me”; “It irritates me that she never closes the door after she leaves”
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology 1
Noun
gravelling (plural gravellings)
The parr or young salmon.
Etymology 2
Verb
gravelling
present participle of gravel
Source: Wiktionary
Grav"el*ing, or Grav"el*ling, n.
1. The act of covering with gravel.
2. A layer or coating of gravel (on a path, etc.).
Grav"el*ing, or Grav"el*ling, n. (Zoöl.)
Definition: A salmon one or two years old, before it has gone to sea.
GRAVEL
Grav"el, n. Etym: [OF. gravele, akin to F. grve a sandy shore, strand; of Celtic origin; cf. Armor. grouan gravel, W. gro coarse gravel, pebbles, and Skr. gravan stone.]
1. Small stones, or fragments of stone; very small pebbles, often intermixed with particles of sand.
2. (Med.)
Definition: A deposit of small calculous concretions in the kidneys and the urinary or gall bladder; also, the disease of which they are a symptom. Gravel powder, a coarse gunpowder; pebble powder.
Grav"el, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Graveled or Gravelled; p. pr. & vb. n. Graveling or Gravelling.]
1. To cover with gravel; as, to gravel a walk.
2. To run (as a ship) upon the gravel or beach; to run aground; to cause to stick fast in gravel or sand. When we were fallen into a place between two seas, they graveled the ship. Acts xxvii. 41 (Rhemish version). Willam the Conqueror . . . chanced as his arrival to be graveled; and one of his feet stuck so fast in the sand that he fell to the ground. Camden.
3. To check or stop; to embarrass; to perplex. [Colloq.] When you were graveled for lack of matter. Shak. The physician was so graveled and amazed withal, that he had not a word more to say. Sir T. North.
4. To hurt or lame (a horse) by gravel lodged between the shoe and foot.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
Word of the Day
1 February 2025
GRIP
(noun) an intellectual hold or understanding; “a good grip on French history”; “they kept a firm grip on the two top priorities”; “he was in the grip of a powerful emotion”; “a terrible power had her in its grasp”
Coffee Trivia
